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Significant Improvement in Relations Between Russia and Japan, and Why There Was No Breakthrough
In this chapter the author sets two goals: to find out why well-thought efforts of the Japanese Prime-Minister Abe and Russian President Putin didn’t solve the territorial problem, and what results in the development of relations between two countries they still managed to achieve. For research, the author relied on analytical eclecticism in the theory of international relations. This is due to the fact that, on the one hand, the territorial dispute has been embedded in mostly neorealist structure of the Northeast Asia’s regional security complex, while, on the other hand, in search of ways to solve it, the leaders’ main efforts were aimed at strengthening of bilateral economic and humanitarian cooperation, which effectiveness is justified by neoliberal and constructivist theories.
The author paid special attention to the analysis of two leaders’ numerous meetings and domestic and foreign policy factors affecting the effectiveness of cooperation. Its results demonstrated that in the face of leading actors’ confrontation in Northeast Asia, the achieved level of relations between Russia and Japan is not enough to solve the long-standing territorial problem, and Prime-Minister Abe’s overconfident policy in this field has failed. Considering Russia, it is satisfied with increased level of political and economic ties with Japan that is limited by strong alliance between Washington and Tokyo